Hot Stuff, Cool Vibes

As much as I like to style myself the intrepid fitness reporter, I have something to confess: I’ve avoided hot yoga. A yoga class I took years ago on a muggy summer day in a studio without air conditioning had been unpleasant enough — dripping sweat and sliding around on my mat. Why would I go to an intentionally heated yoga class?

Credit the powers of persuasion of Adrienne Smith, who owns Power of Your Om yoga studio. The world record holder for rowing unsupported from San Francisco to Hawai’i, she is something of a force of nature.

Even so, my foray into hot yoga began not in the infrared-heated Power of Your Om studio but on Stearns Wharf behind the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center, where the studio hosts a by-donation class one Sunday a month, weather permitting. At this first class, after a long hiatus due to all the winter storms, I joined about 30 other adults, a few kids, and a miniature Australian shepherd. We faced the shore, and Smith encouraged us to feel the sun and breeze on our skin. As we did spinal twists and crescent lunges, Smith cued us to turn, twist, or reach toward the restaurants on the wharf, toward Montecito, toward the sailboats bobbing in the ocean. I picked the white stucco square of a house on the Riviera as my drishti point as we alternated lunging with raising a knee. I could hear the ka-thunk, ka-thunk of cars going over the speed bumps on the wharf and, every so often, a sound like a dolphin exhaling that was probably just the Sea Center’s HVAC system.

Inspired by that lovely experience, I arrived for my first class in the studio, where the four narrow double-hung windows frame a beautiful view of the Riviera with sycamore trees and red tile roofs in the foreground. I had decided to ease into hot yoga with a basic class, but “basic” didn’t mean cooler: It was 99 degrees in the front of the room where I was. Instructor Ayesha Jetley led us through a robust practice that included chaturanga, the warrior poses, half-moon, eagle, lizard, side planks, and more. By the time we got to crow pose, my shorts and lightweight top were both drenched with sweat, and I was pretty sure my knees would slide right off my upper arms if I attempted it.

“If you want to fly,” Smith had said of crow pose at the wharf class, “you have to be willing to eat shit.” I wasn’t willing, so I opted for a yoga squat instead. During savasana, Jetley put a few drops of lavender oil in our upturned palms. But despite Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” on the playlist, I did not feel good about having to mop my face, chest, and hands repeatedly, and slipping on my mat.

Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

For the Yoga x HIIT class, I made a few adjustments: I got my hair up off my neck and invested in a yoga towel to lay on my mat to absorb the sweat dripping off me. I also set aside vanity and broke out an old floral-pattern bra top that I thought I had retired from public use when I decided it was time to keep my middle-aged midriff covered. Todd McCullough, a former Florida football player, teaches this hybrid “kick-ass class” (his words), which combines traditional yoga asanas and breath work with conventional fitness moves like ab crunches and jumping jacks. The studio is heated to 80-85 degrees for this class. The HIIT segment consisted of four sets of three exercises — yoga squat hamstring stretches, plank fireflies, and skate jumps — which we followed with a series of sun salutations before finishing with some nice quad stretches. McCullough was more profane than a typical yoga teacher: “Your body’s going to tell you to give up. Tell it to fuck off.” But at the end, he encouraged us to take a moment for our own spiritual practice, even if it was just to express gratitude or think about a friend. I have a friend undergoing treatment for cancer, so that spoke to me.

By the time I tried the Hot Vinyasa Yoga class (90-100 degrees) with Smith, I was noticing how much more flexible I felt after a hot yoga class. I still didn’t care for getting so sweaty, but at least with the yoga towel, I was no longer sliding around on my mat.

The classes I took at Power of Your Om were all in the weeks leading up to the inaugural Sunsender, a daytime yoga and dance party event Smith was putting on at Santa Barbara City College on April 27. Leaning into the event’s wellness theme, I rode my bike to the SBCC Overlook. The previous day’s howling winds had died down and sunlight glinted on the ocean. As the crowd laid out their mats and applied sunscreen, Billen Ted’s “People Ain’t Dancing” and Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” played on the sound system.

After some brief welcoming remarks and an emotional thanks to the team that helped make Sunsender a reality, Smith led us through a challenging but playful yoga practice — making kissy faces at our neighbors, wagging our booties in chair pose, doing frog kicks and handstands. At the end, she had us do backbends and say hello to the person we were facing. I greeted a glamorous woman in animal-print tights. “This is hard,” I said, and she agreed. “Good job,” we told each other. After the yoga, the festival vibe really kicked in, with young women in diaphanous dusters dancing to the deejay sets by Origami Human and Shallou that followed.

People who had brought swimsuits headed to the changing tents so they could take advantage of the on-site saunas and cold plunges, while others had glitter or permanent jewelry applied. The massage tables were already booked for the rest of the day, so I grabbed a breakfast burrito from the Green Table tent and sampled a non-alcoholic cocktail from Tilden. Then a bearded man named Awe did a chakra and tarot reading for me. Although some of my chakras were blocked, and we had to get my Six of Cups tarot card upright, I’m pleased to report my heart chakra receives and gives a lot of love … and a newfound appreciation for hot yoga.

---

Power of Your Om is located at 1221 State Street, #201, Santa Barbara (upstairs in Victoria Court, down the hall from SOhO). Reserve a spot in a class using a mobile app. Bring mat, water, and towel. Cubbies provided for storing personal items. Makeshift dressing room available; no showers. Parking in adjacent City lot 5; limited street parking. See powerofyourom.com